Country Song (Blu-ray)

Country music superstar Kelly Canter (Gwyneth Paltrow) enters alcohol rehab after tumbling during a concert and meets Beau Hutton (Garrett Hedlund), an aspiring small town country singer. Once out of rehab, she wants to give Beau a shot at the big time by having him open her comeback concert, but her husband/manager James (Tim McGraw) has chosen a beauty queen (Leighton Meester) instead.

I'm not a big fan of melodramatic stories, and this has over-the-top sappiness seeping over the edges. Writer/Director Shana Feste can't keep seem to make up her mind on what direction she wants to take the film; is it a story about a pair of up-and-coming singers or about the superstar trying to regain her footing? Overall, it's a tiring two hour experience with mediocre music and horrendous dialog.

Video Highlights

AVC/1080p encode on a BD-50 disc

Warm color palette

Strong detail in close-ups

Inky blacks

Fine layer of film grain

Audio Highlights

DTS-HD MA 5.1 soundtrack

Score brings soundstage to life

Concerts exhibit excellent ambient effects

Intelligible dialog

The video quality is solid, yet unremarkable, with fine detail taking center stage. Close-ups feature plenty of detail in facial pores and clothing and the inky blacks provide excellent depth. The audio track is about what you would expect from this type of film with the highlight being the concert sequences.

Bonus Materials

Deleted Scenes

Original Ending

3 Featurettes

Music videos

BD-Live enabled with Movie IQ

This is a very flawed film in so many ways, it's hard to recommend it. The presentation is above average but I couldn't get into any of the characters or the music, but I'm not a big country music fan to begin with.